


Discipline and Strength

by foughtyen



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018), The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alcohol, Contests, Fruit, M/M, Walk Into A Bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22393987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foughtyen/pseuds/foughtyen
Summary: Claudia and Soren walk into a bar. Soren walks out a little in love.
Relationships: Seahawk (She-ra and the Princesses of Power)/Soren (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Discipline and Strength

**Author's Note:**

> cw for vomiting after the asterisk (*)

Claudia and Soren walk into a bar.

Claudia coughs on ribbons of smoky air, choking down the compulsion to _aspiro_ furnishings off the walls and patrons off their barstools. Intricately-carved outlines of tropical birds dance across the walls, glowing cyan and magenta.

She breathes into her sleeve, unimpressed with this destination of their day-long detour. The princes and the moonshadow elf are still at large.

“You sure he’s here? this better be worth it, for your sake.”

“I _know_. They said he could track over water. I call that worth it. Get me a beer, then follow me.”

Soren has already scanned the room for positive and negative targets. He weaves through the crowd, casually touching people on the back and brushing sleeves with his broad shoulders. Claudia watches him wander off, wondering what second life he’s had where he’s learned about this. While she studies magic, Soren learns how to get along with men. Something like that.

After ordering “some beer, in a glass... uh, with a handle?” and guessing that a pint what is he wanted, she makes her way to him, guarding the fizzing golden liquid with her other arm as a bumper.

She finds Soren leaning over green felt, debating the trajectory of a shot with his hands. Another skill she didn’t know he had tucked away.

“Glad you’re making friends. Here, drink up.” She gives him a loving, firm hip check and he stumbles, wide-eyed, to laughter, brushing it off as “just my cue-ball impression.”

He raises one hand like a cantor inviting the responsorial, but with the smile of a champion. “My sister, everyone. But just so you know, I’m the good-looking one.” He looks at the pint the way he could only look at food. Quiet enough for only them to hear, he mutters, “Thanks a bunch, Clauds. I’m gonna need this.”

Claudia takes a slip before releasing the glass. “Delivery fee,” she giggles.

Cracks of billiard balls, one after the other at a jogging pace, precede a _plunk_ and raucous cheering. Soren’s trajectory, traced to a tee.

Claudia smirks. “Nice geometry.”

“Hey, just because you got a drink for me doesn’t mean you can call me names.” He holds up a finger as he buries his face in foam, emerging with a thin white mustache he licks off before it gets sticky.

Claudia’s tongue catches on incredulity. “Sure Soren, I’m sorry. Now who are we really here for?”

Soren puts his mouth to his glass and throws a glance towards a booth along the wall opposite the door. Two tiers of cushions, one purely decorative, curl behind those seated like an oyster holds a pearl.

At the center of attention is a mustachioed man with caricature proportions with a small nebula of drinks laid out in front of him, legs crossed and arms spread like he owns the place. Around his neck is a red bandanna, bright like markings on a poison dart frog. His arms but not his midriff are clothed in a blue cropped blazer, drawn up as he stretches over the cushions behind the booth.

Soren is at once attracted and repulsed— this is a man who wants attention and knows he could have it with a snap. Soren’s ego is upset he has no choice but to give it to him. That doesn’t mean Soren gets nothing in return.

“Ooh, your scheming squint is deep today.” Claudia whispers. “Yeah. Take another swig or two, you’ll want to be loose for this.”

Soren empties the pint and burps daintily behind his hand. “That’s for sure.”

“I’ll get you another.” She has her hands around the handle already.

“You’re a life-saver.”

“Don’t go in yet, we need to plan. Let’s good cop-bad cop it.” Claudia nudges. “and I want to be bad cop. Otherwise I’ll always be good cop and that’s boring! I’m fine letting some moral gray into my life.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the way I do things,” by which Soren means literally or figuratively strong-manning anyone into compliance. But mostly literally.

“How do we know there’s not something right about this new way?”

“Fine, flip a coin then.” Soren follows her back to the bar anyway. The liquid courage hasn’t hit whatever organ deals with boldness yet. Muscles, probably.

“You think this dress has pockets? Really?” She might have a paper bill in her sock on a good day.

“I’ve never worn it, how would I know?”

“C’mon Soren. My wardrobe is literally eight copies of this dress.”

Soren groans and digs around in his belongings until he finds a coin. A long-dead monarch of Katolis stares up, unflinching.

“I was just kidding. It does have pockets.” Claudia sticks her tongue out as she inverts the pocket, showing off lightly-frizzing threads. “See? I can totally be bad cop.”

Soren flexes both arms individually and together, ensuring they’re combat ready beneath his light plate. “I have my two backups right here.” He points two thumbs at himself, at his biceps.

“Uh huh.” With eye contact and a gesture, Claudia orders another two pints and offers them to him one at a time as their pillowy foam sinks below the rim, as if apprehensive. “This represents discipline. and this represents strength.”

“You got that right.” Soren nods.

“Good, now don’t bother me until they’re both empty. Ciao!”

“Hey—!” He reaches out with holding hands. white spume splashes over the edge and becomes tragic gold upon contact with the floor.

Claudia is gone. He sees her saunter casually up to their target’s table and gives him a painfully conspicuous up-and-down with her eyes.

At the table, she says, “Hey, I like your boob window.”

His collar is narrow and low; the window itself is small and triangular, at about nipple level. Together it look like a skin-colored exclamation mark on his chest.

He starts talking and his voice unfurls like wool masquerading as silk, a scratchy affectation of elegance. “Ah, yes. A person of refined taste. I don’t believe we’ve met. I can’t imagine why.” He stands to greet her, revealing form-fitting pants that definitely don’t need the belt cinched around his waist to stay up.

“Claudia, a pleasure. we— I want your services. We hear you can track scent over water.”

“Seahawk.” It springs from his mouth with audible capitalization. “I do have services. The best services on the seven seas, and the innumerably greater number of lakes, including tracking. But before we talk business...”

He holds out a hand, unsure whether Claudia intends to shake or have her hand kissed. The rules of seaman’s chivalry unravel when the lady doesn’t play the part.

Another arrival saves him from the quandary.

“You call that bad cop?” Soren’s befuddlement wrinkles his face. He sets down his pair of emptied glasses as proof of completion.

“I was getting somewhere,” Claudia rumbles through grit teeth.

Seahawk spares a glance for him, eyes lingering on the noticeable absence of a boob window on his chest. “Ah, you must be her plus one. Do you too have refined taste?”

Soren knocks over a barstool and half-steps onto it, leaning onto two fists on the table. He takes in this Seahawk guy.

Soren despises how soft Seahawk’s hair makes him look, hanging over his black sweatband— soft, but not weak. It’s unfair how his mustache can even exist. Soren’s own experience with facial hair is peach fuzz and disappointment. An unsettled feeling rouses his stomach. It might be discipline. It might be strength.

“Look, we’re kinda desperate here, so we need someone who can do a lot with a little. I know you have a boat. It’s a nice vessel, I hear. Freshly painted, got that new boat smell. I also know your boats have a history of... going up in smoke.”

Seahawk flares his eyebrows. “You had me at _a lot_. That’s what I do. All the time, every time.”

He picks a random un-empty glass from the constellation in front of himself and takes a sip.

Cracks spiderweb through Soren’s bravado. “Did you hear me... I know your boats have a history of going up in smoke?”

“My hearing is excellent. Twenty-twenty.” A moment of strange stillness passes as Seahawk tries unsuccessfully to wiggle his ears.

Soren plants his feet wide and squints at Seahawk. Broad shoulders, good gains.

“I don’t know about this guy,” Soren unsuccessfully aims his whisper ninety degrees, to Claudia. “I think he’s a little full of himself.”

“Oh, have you met your match?” she smirks.

“N-no way!” Soren regroups. “So, Seahawk...”

“Seahawk is the greatest, humblest captain in the land! His exploits have been flawlessly, truthfully dramatized in ongoing monthly installments in both Xadia and Etheria! Monarchs tell their offspring tales of his strength, his feats, his... uh, humility.” He grins sheepishly, assuming his deep ruse has been peeled back.

“You think you’re so cool talking about yourself in third person?” Soren jabs as he thinks Seahawk is so cool talking about himself in third person. “Well... I... Soren can do that too! Soren will have tales told about me... him, the youngest ever captain of the Katolis crown guard.”

Seahawk recovers his boisterous confidence, expanding his chest and pursing his lips in challenge. “Oh? does that mean something?”

Soren goes red in the ears, only a froth of incoherent verbiage assembling in his mouth. The pints are making their presence known by confiscating precious brainpower for themselves and letting it idle. Sweat on his forehead is making itself noticeable. On the verge of succumbing to sensory overload, he manages to spurt out, “let’s take this outside.”

The fresh air might do him some good, but the sunlight beaming down is corrosive on his eyes. He backs nonchalantly into the shade beneath the roofline and the relief is immediate. “I’m gonna need you to sit on me.” he orders flatly.

Seahawk gasps. “That’s awfully direct of you. Are you going to pay me, or take me out to an equivalently expensive dinner? Do you even know my last name?”

“Sit _on my back_ and I’ll show you my strength.”

Soren sets his hands on the ground and spreads his feet to shoulder-width apart. After several years, he’s turned exercise into a form of meditation. Exertion builds the body and pins the mind to the now. Soren in his unrivaled perspicacity articulates this as _being sweaty helps me focus_.

Soren repeats, harsher now, “Get on and I’ll show you how strong i am!”

Seahawk sets himself down in the small of his back. “what do i do now? uh... giddy-up?“

In answer, Soren pushes away from the ground until his elbows are a hair’s width from tautness. Only a faint breath, starting the count of ‘one’ and eyes laser-focused in front of him betray any sense of effort.

“Oh, i see...”

Lost in internal monologue, Soren doesn’t hear his own voice counting upwards. He fast-forwards and rewinds the previous minutes in his head. The mental footage is all-engrossing.

Seahawk’s winged eyeliner ropes him in with every blink. His mustache is unfairly radiant, perky with a glossy sheen. At this very moment, Soren can feel the shape of Seahawk’s glutes in the small of his back. Sculpted. That bastard. He represses these observations so he can win, part of the bad thoughts he breathes out.

His voice calls out twenty-five push-ups perfectly pressed out. Soren reaches behind himself with one hand, switching to rely on the remaining one to support twice his body weight. When he reaches behind himself, he brushes Seahawk’s ass. Pretty sure he does, anyway, he can’t stop and check now.

Breathe bad thoughts out.

He passes fifty, little grunts of exertion growing into big ones as he pushes the weight of two built bodies off the ground. He switches hands with each push-up.

Seahawk has been inert weight until now. He rolls over onto his belly, meaning the lump in the small of Soren’s back is... breathe those thoughts out.

His bandanna brushes Soren’s neck, evoking ticklishness and longing. He rests his head on his folded arms and his folded arms on Soren’s shoulders.

Soren pauses at the top of a push-up. “Sixty-n... can you not do that?” His scalp crawls. There are fingers in his hair, Seahawk’s, twirling the longest of them, on the crown of his head, by the whorl.

“I’m sorry, it was just so lovely. Continue, please.” Seahawk hums at Soren’s hairline, raising goosebumps on his neck.

Soren senses the pre-yell expansion of Seahawk’s torso. “Enough!” Seahawk cries as Soren breaks a hundred, rolling off his back, kneeling, and leaping upright.

Soren sweats profusely and breathes deeply, but in his muscle heart— not his real one, but his spiritual one—there is nothing but calm and the burn of lactic acid.

“You have the strength,” Seahawk points at Soren YMCA-like, _young man_... and transitions to a double-arm flex, “but do you have the sensitivity?” he clasps his hands over his heart and bats his long lashes.

Claudia interjects, one eyebrow raised high. “That doesn’t even make sense.” Not that anything has.

Soren’s expression is somber. His mouth is a flat line. This is an affront to the honor of his muscles. Insults to his intelligence he can take. There is nothing graver than this.

“No, I need to take this one. Let’s hear what Seahawk has in mind.”

“Soren, you just did a hundred impossible push-ups. Don’t let him move the goalposts.”

Soren fists one hand over his own heart, summoning emotion to rival Seahawk from a wellspring only accessible to his gains. He looks up from the ground, “As much as it pains me to admit it, there is more than one way to be strong.”

With a flourish of the wrist, Seahawk holds out his hand in invitation and leads a mesmerized Soren back inside. “What I will show you is a secret, a—ncient technique passed down through the menfolk in my family. You are very lucky to get to see it.”

Twinkles play in his eyes, scattered reflections of the light fixtures

Soren’s eyes adjust to the welcome retreat from the sun, although the smoky air sits in his lungs with nearly unacclimatable harshness. Seahawk reclaims his table, which no one has touched, not even to clear away Soren’s finished beers.

“Could you get me something with a cherry on top?” Seahawk licks his lips at the end of the request to Soren. Facing Claudia, he gestures to the table. “Sit down and have anything you like. The show will start when Soren gets back.”

Soren goes to the bar with his heartbeat in his throat, his internal monologue decaying into internal screaming with reminders to push out his chest to make it look bigger. What he ends up with is a fruit cocktail cocktail— syrupy slices of pineapple and orange, a cherry, and an umbrella all plunged into crystal-clear vodka.

One of new his pool table buddies connects the dots and gives him a pat on the back, just forceful enough to slosh the contents of the cocktail glass but not transgress the rim. The rest of them hold their cues at the ready and salute as he walks past.

Soren puts on his bravest face and offers it to Seahawk.

“Oh, you bought a drink for me? How sweet.” He takes a quick sip that leaves full magenta lip-marks in on either side of the glass. With a wink he pushes the drink and turns the lipsticked print to Soren.

Soren folds his arms skeptically. “Alright, show me this amazing talent of yours.”

“You might want to sit down for this,” Seahawk advises. Soren obliges, perching at the end of the booth. Claudia slides behind him.

Locking eyes with Soren, Seahawk lifts the cherry with a delicate pinch, places it against his pursed lips and sucks in to bite it off. The stem remains, resting between in his fingertips.

“Pfft, wow, he can eat fruit,” Claudia mumbles on the sibling frequency, silent to all but Soren.

Soren says nothing, captivated by the slow showmanship, the changes in lighting on the places of this man’s face brought about by minute movements of his jaw.

Seahawk slides one end of the stem into the boob window and pushes until the whole length disappears. A lascivious gasp ghosts from his throat. Folding his hands in air before himself, he flexes and squeezes his pecs. His arms trace separate patterns through the air as if slowed by unseen syrup, in some confusingly executed interpretive dance number.

After a full minute of graceful writhing, Seahawk returns to a steady pose, hands folded at boob-window level. Hints of a smile grow beneath his lustrous mustache.

Awe and blush spread on Soren’s face as from within the boob window, Seahawk’s careful fingers retrieve a perfectly proportioned square knot, none of the stem’s suppleness squandered.

Soren straightens his posture, stands, and puts out a hand. “I know when I’m outdone.”

Seahawk stands on tiptoes to make Soren need to look a fraction of a fraction up at him. “I am the best, but you impress me.” He takes Soren’s hand and brushes his lips over his knuckles, dipping into a kneel.

The moment lengthens into an awkward silence, a stiffness like baked meringue overcoming the room. One of the billiards buddies is stopped mid-fall. Only when Soren follows Seahawk’s gaze does he see the blue regalia on a soldier standing in the doorway.

“I think that’s for me,” Soren mutters.

“You’re sure?” Seahawk whispers, voice pregnant with sorrow.

Two gold diamonds on a field of blue confirm it. There are no other enlisted Katolians here, at least none who responded to his presence.

“Yeah. Definitely for me.”

“Here, friend!” Seahawk calls and the conversations and rowdiness resume as if uninterrupted. Billiards buddy finally falls over.

“Soren, sir. They’ve been sighted, the princes. You’re ordered to report to garrison immediately.”

The whisper hits his ear and Soren wilts. He dismisses the soldier. Heartbreak plain on his face, he tells Seahawk, “I... don’t think we have need of your services anymore.”

“Wait, before you go. Remember me with this.” Standing with their hips too close together, Seahawk draws something else from within the boob window and offers it.

Soren blinks. “Uh, this is a matchstick.”

“And did I not light a flame within you?” He turns toward Soren and winks so only they can see. “And you, my darling, can have this.” Seahawk pats the vodka and fruit juice-soaked paper umbrella against a napkin and threads it carefully into Claudia’s hair.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have.” Claudia says, meaning it.

Soren tears up. “You have a buff heart.”

They draw close for the wrist-slide back-pat ritual that every man knows, but then they hold each other in embrace for a long time.

“Call on me again someday.” Seahawk says over Soren’s back. “I will gladly serve Katolis... under you, or perhaps over, at a later date?”

*

Outside the bar, Claudia turns to Soren. “What just happened?”

“What we learned is that I was the person of refined taste, in the end.”

A bubble of gas catches in his throat, followed by a burning, acidic slurry. He stumbles into the bushes, slapping a hand for support against the rough stucco wall of the bar as he squeezes his stomach empty.

“That was discipline.”

He coughs up a final stream of liquid. “That wasn’t discipline.”

Claudia yells what must be _clean_ or _sober up, dumbass_ in Draconic because his head clears and the taste and stench of stomach acid-infused beer dissipates.

“It sure wasn’t strength though!” he whines unconfidently, weak and achy. “Do you have a spell that can do that but for feelings?”

“Maybe, but I’m never going to use it on you.”


End file.
